Abstract
We demonstrate a type of chiral effect of an atomic medium. Polarization rotation of a probe beam is observed only when both a magnetic field and a linearly polarized coupling beam are present. We compare it with other chiral effects like optical activity, the Faraday effect, and the optically induced Faraday effect from the viewpoint of spatial inversion and time reversal transformations. As a theoretical model we consider a five-level configuration involving the cesium transition. We use spin-polarized cold cesium atoms trapped in a magneto-optical trap to measure the polarization rotation versus probe detuning. The result shows reasonable agreement with a calculation from the master equation of the five-level configuration.
- Received 18 July 2007
DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevA.76.053802
©2007 American Physical Society